Uran and the Little People
by Tetsuwan Penguin
Summary: Uran insists that there are little people living in the country house where She, Astro, and Dr. O'Shay are spending a few weeks of vacation time away from Metro City.
1. The house in the country

**Uran and the Little People  
**

_Introduction:  
I recently discovered the Anime "The secret world of Arrietty" and really enjoyed it. Then in my mind I wondered how Uran and Astro might interact with the borrowers. (Especially Uran!) For this head cannon, I'm envisioning the "cute widdow Astro" version of our robot hero which is more like the version of him in the 2003 series and the 1980 series, with a bit of the Akira Himekawa Doujinshis thrown in. This story takes place about two years after the Arrietty Anime._

* * *

_Chapter One: The house in the country_

**The automobile** bounced along the winding country roadway. They had been driving for a few hours now, having left the Metro City megalopolis far behind them.

"Are we there yet?" Uran asked for about the 100th time.

"Almost there." Dr. O'Shay patiently replied.

"Why do we have to go to the country?" Uran asked. "I bet there are no robots out here at all!"

"I think the peace and quiet will do all of us a lot of good." O'Shay answered. "The two of you have never seen nature in its normal state. It's time that you got out of the city and saw how beautiful the world really is."

"I can't wait!" Astro cooed.

"Well what do you know, here we are!" Dr. O'Shay said as he took the upcoming cutoff on the two lane blacktop and turned onto a narrow road leading up to a hidden driveway.

**Dr. O'Shay** parked the car in the driveway in front of the small house. They were deep in the country side, far away from the noise and hurry of the city. Uran stepped from the car slowly, looking around. She had never been far from Metro City, and the unpaved surface beneath her feet felt alien to her. The soft damp smell in the air was also new to her olfactory receptors, the tweeting of the birds and the chirping of crickets tickled her ears. Astro followed his sister, also taking in the different environment. The ground crunched under his red boots as he walked. Dr. O'Shay could see that the two androids were experiencing something new, neither of them had been far from Metro City, and this outing would be an opportunity for them to have some new sensations.

Dr. O'Shay had arranged for the trip several weeks earlier. Yuki's detective uncle Wally had a client who was a real estate agent. The agent had a listing for a place in the country that had just gone on the market, and the owners were willing to rent out the furnished property during the summer until a buyer could be found. The house was a two story wooden structure with a tile roof. It had three bedrooms on the top floor, and an attic above them that was crammed with old treasures left behind by the former residents. The ground floor housed a fully equipped kitchen and a huge pantry. A comfortable dining and living room took up the remainder of the lower floor. Below that was a basement, parts of which had a low ceiling. The basement was mostly used for storage, but it also had a finished area that could be used as an extra bedroom, or for entertaining young guests. An old player piano stood against one wall, and a dartboard hung from another.

There was a large garden in the front of the house, with a covered well with a real crank up bucket for drawing water. In back of the house was a large yard, a small swimming pool, a duck pond, and two swings hanging from a wooden A-Frame. In the far back of the yard, there was a small wooden shed where the gardening tools were stored. Hidden in the canopy of a sturdy oak, was a kid's size tree house. A rustic path trailed away into the woods, and went down hill to a stream where fish were know to jump. All in all, the place was a wonderful retreat for city dwellers looking for some peace and quiet.

O'Shay worked the key in the lock. The old door acted as if it hadn't been opened for some time and the latching mechanism was a bit rusty. It was an old fashioned type of lock, that took a large flag style key that fit into the lock with a lot of play. After wiggling the key around in the lock he finally got the latch to release and the door creaked open on its rusty hinges.  
"Good thing I've brought some oil with me." He laughed. "I wonder what kind of repairs we'll have to make?"

While Dr. O'Shay and Uran had walked toward the house, Astro had grabbed the suitcases from the trunk of the car and was now right behind his guardian. He looked like a Himalayan Sherpa, overloaded with the gear of the climbers who had hired him. Despite his small statue, which was now buried somewhere in the middle of the large pile of luggage, Astro easily carried the burden into the house. He set the pile of suitcases and bags neatly down in the middle of the living room.

Uran, on the other hand, dawdled behind, stopping often to smell a flower or observe an insect crawling on a leaf. She was especially fascinated by the sight of a woolly caterpillar slowly crawling up the trunk of a small sapling. Suddenly the rustle of movement under a hedge caught her eye. She quickly reached in, parting the leaves low to the ground with her hands to see what was inside. Uran rubbed her eyes, thinking that they had deceived her, for she had caught a fleeting glance of a small female figure running for cover into the tall grass in front of the house, just to the right of the path leading up to the front door.

"Come on Uran, we have to unpack!" Astro yelled through the front door.

"Coming Astro-Ani!" Uran yelled back as she broke into a run along the flagstone walkway leading from the driveway to the front porch. She took a final glance over her shoulder to look for the small being she swore she had seen running away from her, but now detected nothing.

Uran bounded up the wooden steps leading from the flagstones to the porch that spanned the entire front of the house. She stopped briefly to notice the swinging bench seat next to the picture windows that looked out into the garden.

"Uran!" Astro called out again.

"Alright!" she yelled back as she entered the house.

The inside of the house was dark as the window shades and blinds had been left down. Astro and O'Shay were already adjusting these to let sunlight into the house. Uran was feeling along the walls for a light switch, but didn't find any. O'Shay saw what she was doing and laughed.

"This old house doesn't have any built in electric lighting." he explained. "There are some floor lamps that might work, but you have to reach up to turn them on. I checked with the power company before we left, they said they would get around to restoring the power out here but they may not have got to it yet."

That brought a sour look onto Uran's face. O'Shay walked over to one of the floor lamps and reached up under the shade to find the pull chain for the light. The lamp came on for a second giving out a flash of light as the light bulb burned out.  
"I guess I should have added light bulbs to the list of items to pack" he sighed. "Maybe there are some spares in the basement."

Astro picked up four of the suitcases and slowly made his way up the stairs. He had taken both his and O'Shay's leaving Uran's two bits of luggage on the floor for his sister to carry up herself. Uran took the hint and grabbed her two bags and followed her brother on the staircase. Just before her right foot touched the first step she caught a glint of light out of the corner of her eye. It seemed to come from a small hole in the baseboard next to the fireplace. She shook her head and mounted the stairs.

Up on the second floor landing, Dr. O'Shay had already opened the doors to the three bedrooms. He had claimed the master suit for himself, it had a large walk in closet and a full bathroom. The other two bedrooms were on the other side of the second floor. They shared a small water closet between them, and each had a smaller, but quite adequate closet. The two smaller bedrooms were actually mirror image twins of each other. Both had a large window over looking the back yard, with a clear view of the stream about a quarter of a mile away. Each had a large, nearly Queen sized bed, with an overstuffed mattress and equally comfortable comforter and plump pillows. On the side of the beds were night stands with working table lamps.

Dr. O'Shay found his larger suitcase on the bed where Astro had carefully deposited it. The smaller case was on top of a small chest of drawers at the foot of the bed. He opened his luggage and began to unpack, putting his shirts, socks and underwear into the drawers. He hung his trousers in the closet, which had been well stocked with hangars.

Uran dropped her suitcases onto the floor and unpacked by tossing the contents onto the bed. She then opened the drawers off her dresser, and tossed the contents from the bed into them. Despite the crudeness of her methods, the garments remained as well folded and neatly pressed as they had been when first packed.

Astro carefully removed each of his shirts and short pants from the suitcase and neatly placed them in the dresser drawers. He hadn't brought as large a wardrobe as his sister, and it took him only a few minutes to quickly empty the suitcase. His other suitcase contained some toys and a few stuffed animals that he slept with.

Having unpacked his suitcases, Dr. O'Shay returned to the car to remove the last of the trunk's contents, several large bags of groceries and other supplies. These he brought into the dining room, emptying the contents of the bags onto the large table. O'Shay started to carry the various items into the kitchen, to stock the pantry. Uran skipped down the stairs two steps at a time, and found her way into the dining room. She picked up a large jar of chocolate covered raisins that Dr. O'Shay had brought for her and turned the jar over and over in front of her eyes, counting. 512 she announced, putting the jar down and picking up another one containing jellybeans that Astro favored, repeating the exercise, 333 she said.

"Are you doing that again?" Astro asked.

"I like counting things." Uran replied. "Now I can keep track in case any go missing!"

"Who is going to steal our candies out here?" Astro laughed.

"You never know!" Uran laughed. "Maybe the little people."

Astro gave Uran a funny look, and shrugged his shoulders.

Dr, O'Shay finished putting the canned goods into the pantry and looked at his list.  
"We still need some supplies from the general store." He said. "It's about a ten minute drive into town from here, let's get back in the car and do some shopping so we can finish stocking the pantry. Then I'll cook us some dinner."

"I'm going to help!" Uran yelled out. "You can't cook without me!"

"OK." O'Shay agreed.

The three of them left the house and headed for the car. They drove off, heading in the same direction as which they had come, toward the small country town to shop for the food items needed.

* * *

**Arrietty **had watched the new arrivals since the small automobile had first pulled up. She had been exploring in the garden, looking for some seeds when the smallest of the 'beans had nearly spotted her. While the 'beans had been moving into the house, she had watched them from several of the secret places behind the walls, trying to learn more about them. After they left the house, and the car had pulled out, she walked into the living room of the Borrower's small dwelling under the floorboards of the house. Her father and mother were there relaxing.

"You've been watching the new 'beans, haven't you?" Her father, Pod asked.

"Yes, I have." she said. "Now that there are humans in the house, maybe we won't have to move out? I mean, they will bring in stuff that we can use. Things were starting to get scarce, like you said."

"Maybe." Pod replied. "We'll have to see how dangerous these new 'beans are. The older one doesn't look very observant, he'll probably never cause us any issues. The smallest one nearly saw you out in the garden. There's something about her, and the slightly larger one that is probably her brother, that I can't place. We'll have to keep an eye on them before deciding if it will be safe to borrow anything while they are living here."

Arrietty's mother, Homily, was a bit more observant. "I don't think the two smaller ones are 'beans at all." She said. "I used to live in the city before I met your father. They had servants that looked like humans, but were really machines. I think those two little ones look a bit like those robots."

"Is that good or bad, dear" Pod asked.

"Depends." Homily replied. "Robots can sometimes keep secrets from their human masters. I've heard of borrower's befriending robots before, right under the 'beans noses." Across the room, an infant started to cry in his cradle. Homily picked up the little boy and held him against her to nurse him. Arrietty smiled at her younger brother, Shawn, who had been named after the boy 'bean that had befriended her two years ago.

Spiller walked into the dwelling through the back entrance carrying a sack of acorns. Spiller looked like a native American, dressed in simple clothing, and wearing makeup paint on his face. His vocabulary had been limited before meeting up with Arrietty's family, now he was a bit more talkative. They had moved here from another house about two years ago, before the baby had been born, when Arriety was 15 years old. Now there were five of them living under the same roof.

Spiller smiled when he saw Arrietty. He'd been courting her for about six months now, but Arrietty wasn't yet sure how she felt about him. Her parents were hopeful, since there weren't too many borrowers left in the world. They had long hoped she'd find someone to fall in love with, and Spiller wasn't a bad person.


	2. Dinner followed by Music

**Uran and the Little People**

_Chapter Two: Dinner followed by Music_

* * *

**Uran **busied herself peeling potatoes and onions, husking ears of corn, and cleaning fish.

"What are we making out of all of this stuff?" Uran asked, again.

"My grandmother's famous fish chowder recipe." Dr. O'Shay smiled.

Astro also wanted to help, he was now scrapping and dicing carrots, and cubing the potatoes that his sister had just cleaned. Dr. O'Shay had placed a large pot on the stove filled with water. He added some salt and was waiting for the water to boil. He quickly pan fried the fish, leaving them just slightly under cooked, they'd cook some more while boiling in the soup. Astro used a large knife to cut the ears of corn into halves and dropped them into the pot.

Uran now started to cut up some celery, while Dr. O'Shay sprinkled some dill weed into the now boiling water. With all of the vegetables now cut up and added to the mix, he sliced up the fish into chunks and put them into the soup.  
"Now for some spices", he said adding garlic and pepper. He put the lid on the pot and turned down the heat to a low boil. Already the smell began to make him salivate.

"That smells yummy!" Uran said.

Astro sniffed the steam coming from the pot and smiled.

* * *

**Pod **peeked out through the pantry door which was open a crack. They had gained entry to the storage closet via a crack in the wall behind some jars of strawberry preserves. From his vantage point he watched the older 'bean preparing dinner, with some help from the two smaller ones. OK, maybe the young'ers were really 'bots and not 'beans, but they were acting like 'bean children at the moment.

The pantry was now well stocked, compared to how it had been only a day ago. When the last family of humans had moved out they hadn't left much in the kitchen pantry. The borrowers were able to take what they wanted with little fear of being discovered before, now the family would have to be a bit more careful, but at least there was plenty to chose from. Arrietty looked around at the contents of the pantry. She had been accompanying her father on borrowing missions since she had turned fourteen, about three years ago. Suddenly, she spotted something that made her excited.

"Look father, chocolates!" she said. "Can I take some?"

"Just take one or two," her father said "the 'beans won't miss them out of a jar of so many."

Pod moved a box of matches close to the jar, and then stepped up on the box. Arrietty climbed up on her father's shoulders and was barely able to reach the lid of the jar. She carefully turned the lid open and lifted it up, and lowered it down to her father who caught it. Arrietty reached into the jar, which was full to the top with the candies, and plucked out two of them. She put them into her bag, and then her father handed the lid back up to her so she could screw it back on.

"Let's get back home now." Her father said. "I've made a list what's in here and we'll ask your mother what she needs and come back after the 'beans go to sleep."

Arrietty and Pod went through the crack in the wall at the back of the pantry and made their way back to their dwelling space.

* * *

**Dr. O'Shay **watched the pot while Uran and Astro set the table. He took down three large soup bowls from the cupboard above the sink and found a ladle in one of the drawers. Uran walked up to the stove and looked up at O'Shay.  
"Can I serve?" she asked.

"OK, but be careful, it's hot!" her guardian replied.

Astro looked on with some concern as his sister used the ladle to dish out three equal portions of the steaming chowder into the large bowls. She then carried the first one over to the table and set it down in front of her brother.  
"This one's for you Astro-Ani" she smiled.

Uran then carried the second bowl to the table and set it on the table at Dr. O'Shay's setting. She finally brought her own bowl to the table. Meanwhile, Astro had walked over to the pantry and rummaged about inside. He returned to the table with a box of saltine crackers. Minding his manors, he offered the box to Uran first.

"Thank you Astro-Ani!" Uran said, accepting the box and removing a handful of crackers. She passed the box to Dr. O'Shay who replied "No, thank you" and returned the box to Astro. Astro then grabbed a handful of crackers and broke them into crumbs which he sprinkled into his soup. Uran simply cracked each one in half before adding them to her bowl.

Uran really enjoyed her chowder, she made loud "UMMM" sounds after every mouthful. Astro ate in silence, with an almost expressionless look on his face. He couldn't seem to figure out if he liked the meal or not, but he didn't seem to find it objectionable. With her bowl almost empty, Uran lifted it to her lips and slurped down the last bit directly from the bowl. "Slllpppppp"

"It's not lady like to slurp your soup!" Dr. O'Shay told her.

"I'm sorry." Uran said "but it was so good I had to get the last drop!"

**Uran** walked into the pantry and came out holding her large jar of chocolate covered raisins.  
"Can I have some desert?" she asked.

Dr. O'Shay smiled at her and said "since you've been such a good helper and didn't waste any food you may."

Uran was about to open the jar and grab herself a handful of the chocolate covered raisins, when she had a second though. She held the jar up to her eyes and slowly rotated it, counting every single piece. Astro face palmed at the sight of his sister's action, but Dr. O'Shay was used to this. It was a ritual with the android girl, she loved to count things.

"510, there are TWO MISSING!" Uran yelled out loud. "And before you ask, I counted them 10 times and got the same answer each time!"

Uran gave her brother the evil eye, but Astro shrugged his shoulders and shook his head back and forth to say wordlessly that he had nothing to do with this. Suddenly, the anger seemed to lift from Uran's face as a thought crossed her mind. She opened the jar and removed a handful of the candy, counting out how much she had removed.

"I guess the little people borrowed some from me!" She said. "Well, I'm willing to share!"

"Little people?" Astro asked.

"I saw one of them in the garden when we first got here." Uran said. "A little girl no more than five inches tall was running through the tall grass toward the house. I bet she lives with her family behind the walls."

"You've been reading too many fairy tales!" Astro laughed. Uran stuck her tongue out at her brother while pulling a lower eyelid down with her pinkie.  
"Bleeah" she hissed at him.

**Dr. O'Shay **caught the tail end of the siblings taunting each other.  
"Come on you two, play nicely with each other!" He said. "Why don't you go downstairs and check out the recreation room before bedtime?"

Uran's attitude took a sudden 180 degree turn.  
"Yeah, I wonder what's downstairs?" She laughed. "Come on Astro-Ani, lets explore!"

Uran grabbed Astro by the arm and pulled him along with her toward the stairs leading down to the basement. Astro allowed himself to be pulled along and followed her downstairs on his own free will. O'Shay watched as the two of them descended the stairs to the basement.

Dr. O'Shay soon found himself deep in thought. Astro and Uran were alike in many ways, but also so different. Astro had been designed by Dr. Tenma, and created by the man's own hands. He was actually a scaled down military robot built in the image of the doctor's deceased nine year old son. As such he contained the same weapons and flight systems that were designed for military use. Buried at the inner heart of his A.I. was the same cold ,heartless, calculating, seek out and destroy logic, designed to take out an enemy threat. Yet on the surface was the timid, shy, yet curious persona of a charming nine year old child. Astro acted much as Tobio Tenma had once been, being a meek and introverted individual. Yet, when he found himself in a situation where family, friends, or even total strangers were in danger, his fears melted away and he showed his hidden traits of fearless self sacrifice to save others. Astro lacked the ability to understand the human concepts of art and beauty, possibly because the core of his A.I. had been originally developed for a darker purpose.

Uran, on the other hand had been designed from the ground up as a clone of a human child. Her blueprints came from files found in the ashes of Dr. Tenma's laboratory after he had gone mad and set fire to the place. Uran was modeled after the Doctor's younger daughter Urania, who had died from the same drug resistant strain of influenza that had claimed her mother. Tenma never built the android who's plans he had worked on, it would be Dr. O'Shay who would later use them to construct a sister for Astro. Uran lacked her brother's weapons and flight systems and sensors. She had about only a third of Astro's horse power, which still made her quite a handful.

While her computer brain was actually a generation more advanced than Astro's, her personality masked her true mental abilities. Uran's A.I. was constructed from the results of research that had been done in the field after Astro had been created. Actual mental pattern software downloaded from Urania by Dr. Tenma before the death of his younger child also formed the matrix of her kokoro. Uran was a sensitive, feeling individual. She had the ability to comprehend the arts that Astro lacked. She also was gifted with the ability to feel the thoughts of other living things, particularly animals. She was also very often, a moody, rebellious, seven year old girl.

Uran bounced down the stairs followed by Astro, who barely kept up with her. She reached the basement level and fumbled along the wall for the light switch. Astro turned on his eye searchlights so his sister could find the switch, and she turned it on. The basement was the only room in the house besides the kitchen and bathrooms with ceiling mounted lights. Uran looked around and cried out, "Look! A Piano!"

She ran over to the far side of the room where the old upright player piano sat next to the wall. Sitting on top of the instrument was a box filled with old piano rolls. Uran lifted the top of the bench seat in front of the piano to find several books of sheet music. Astro reached up and took the box of rolls down from atop the instrument, and Uran quickly opened it up. She pulled one out and looked at the writing on the end of the spool, reading it aloud.

"The Entertainer Rag, Scott Joplin". Uran then opened the doors at the front of the piano and attempted to thread the roll in. Astro moved closer to help but his sister brushed him aside, she had already figure out how it worked and soon had the music roll correctly mounted in the piano.

"No how do we work this thing?" She thought out loud.

Uran found the switch under the keyboard that activated the player mechanism and reached for the pump pedals with her feet. Her legs were just barely long enough if she sat on the very edge of the bench. The old bellows in the machine were a bit on the leaky side and Uran had to pump the pedals quickly to get the player started. Soon the sounds of Joplin's famous piano rag were drifting upstairs, just a bit out of tune on the old instrument.

When the roll reached the end of the spool, Uran started thumbing through the music books. She already knew how to read the notes, since her class in school had a music teacher who had started them playing the recorder. She opened an advanced book to a page that was almost completely black with notes.

"You're not going to try and play THAT are you?" Astro asked.

Uran had already started to move her fingers in mid air stretching the digits on her small hands to try and span the keys to reach all the notes.

"Sure, why not?" Uran asked.

Astro face palmed but his sister attacked the piece. At least it started out as a slow composition, it gave her time to work out the fingering on the keyboard.

Dr. O'Shay heard the sound of the piano prelude floating up the stairs. It was obviously NOT the piano roll this time, for he could hear a few mistakes. But the Rachmaninoff melody was unmistakable! He got up and tip-toed down the stars, to stand at the bottom watching in awe as Uran attacked the very difficult piece.

"That was incredible!" he said as Uran reached the end of it.

Astro looked at the page of sheet music sitting on the piano. He read the title. 'Prelude Op.3 No.2 in C-sharp minor'. Astro looked at his sister and felt a bit inferior, for he knew HE could NEVER sight read the music and play it like Uran had just done.


	3. A mid summer night's dream

**Uran and the Little People**

_Chapter Three: A mid summer night's dream_

**While **Dr. O'Shay and Astro watched and listened, Uran tried several other pieces in the sheet music books. She played Schubert's "Marche Militaire" almost flawlessly, and also had no difficulty with the Chopin 'Polonaise Heroic". The last piece she tried was Beethoven's "Fur Elise", which was the easiest of the bunch.

"I didn't know you could play the piano." Dr. O'Shay said.

"Well I already knew how to read the notes." Uran explained. "The rest was a simple program. But I think this instrument is a bit out of tune."

"Yes, I believe you're right about that." Her guardian agreed.

"Say, why don't you try to play, Astro-Ani?" Uran asked.

Astro was already walking up the stairs with his head hanging down a bit. He knew when he was beaten. This was one area where his sister was much better than he was.

**Uran closed** the lid over the piano's keyboard and put the sheet music books back in the bench, while Dr. O'Shay put the box of piano rolls back on top of the instrument.  
"I think it's about your bedtime, young lady" He said. "I think your brother is probably already upstairs in his room."

Uran followed the old man upstairs, turning out the lights as she left the basement. Sure enough, Astro was already walking out of the bathroom in his PJ's having brushed his teeth. Dr. O'Shay tucked Astro into bed. He saw that the child was upset, and he knew why.  
"You know that you can do so many things your sister can't, Astro." He said. "She does have a gift with the more subtle things, but it sorta makes up for what she can't do, don't you think?"

"I guess so." Astro sighed. "You know, she did play the piano very nicely, but I couldn't feel anything listening to it. Noise and music can have the same effect on me. I wish I could just 'get it' when I hear music."

"Well Astro, like some people are color blind, maybe you are 'color deaf', if you know what I mean." O'Shay told him. "Many people are tone deaf and can't tell when something is played way out of tune. You're no worse off than they are."

"Oh." Astro said. "Good night Sensei" he added.

"Good night Astro-kun" O'Shay replied, as he turned out the lamp on the table and left the room.

**As soon** as O'Shay walked into the second bedroom Uran launched herself off the bed and into the old man's arms. She hugged him around the neck.

"Good night Dr. O'Shay!" she laughed.

"You're going to kill me with kindness one of these days!" O'Shay laughed as he almost fell over backwards from the little android's affection.

Uran planted a kiss on her guardian's check and leaped into bed. The old man tucked her in and returned the kiss on the check.  
"Good night, Uran." he said as he turned out her light and left the room.

**Dr. O'Shay **then entered his own bedroom and got ready for bed. The hour was still early, at least it would be if he was still in Metro City. But, he knew the two children would be awake at the crack of dawn so he figured he'd better turn in early himself. He took care of his own toiletries, changed into his pajamas and was soon comfortably in bed, sawing wood.

* * *

**Pod,** Arrietty, and Spiller carefully packed their backpacks with the tools they'd need for the borrowing expedition. Homily handed her husband a short list of items.

"Please try to find me the 'beans stomach and pain medicine pills" she said. "The pain in my abdomen is back again, and I feel a bit feverish."

"OK, We'll make a side trip upstairs and search the bathrooms." Pod said, kissing his wife. "But it this keeps up we really should find a healer for you."

**Pod **signaled with a hand wave that all was clear up ahead. The lights were all out in the house, the 'beans had gone to sleep. Arrietty and Spiller followed Pop though the passage way behind the walls until they reached the kitchen pantry where they had been earlier. Spiller located the tea bags, and put two of them in his backpack. Arrietty couldn't find any sugar cubes, but there were paper wrapped packets of sugar, she placed two of these in her bag. Pod checked his list, Homily had also asked for some crackers and cereal for her baking. He and Spiller slowly lowered the box of crackers down and Arrietty crawled inside and removed several of these. Pod carefully put the crackers into his sack. He then located a box of cereal, and filled a corner of his sack with as many grains of it that he could fit.

"Last thing on the list is the medicine for your mother." Pod said. "We need to look for analgesic and antacid pills for her. We'll have to go upstairs to look in the 'beans bathroom medicine cabinets."

They slowly climbed up through the walls to the second floor. "Spiller, you come with me to the master bedroom and help me look in the master suite's bathroom. Arrietty, you go to the small bathroom between the two smaller bedrooms and look in there."

"OK, dad" She said.

The small water closet sitting between the two small bathrooms housed twin sinks and a toilet. There were two doors to the bathroom, each one led to one of the bedrooms. The doors could be locked from the inside to allow for privacy. The door leading to Astro's bedroom was closed, but Uran had left her's open. From her pillow she had a good view of the sinks in the water closet. A small night light glowed between the two sinks throwing dim shadows into Uran's room.

The hidden passage way behind the walls led to a small opening in the baseboard on the floor of the water closet under the sinks. Arrietty entered the small bathroom and used her grappling hook and rope to climb up from the floor to the sink level, and again to reach the medicine cabinets over the sink. Other than toothpaste and soap, the cabinets were empty, which made sense since neither Uran nor Astro would need any kind of medicines. Those were in the cabinet in the master bathroom next door where Dr. O'Shay was sleeping.

Uran lay in bed, trying to get to sleep. The sound of the crickets outside had slowly risen in volume to her ears, which were not used to the night time noises of the country side. She tossed and turned in bed, and was now facing the open door to the bathroom. There, standing on the sink was Arrietty, who had just climbed down from the medicine cabinet and was about to repel down to the floor.

Uran crept out of her bed and walked as softly as she could toward the bathroom. By the time she got there Arrietty had already climbed down to the floor and was jerking her grappling hook free from the sink.

"Hello!" Uran said sweetly. "Do you need anything?"

Arrietty looked up into the face of the android girl and swallowed hard. She had been discovered!

"Don't run away! I won't hurt you." Uran smiled. "What is your name? I'm called Uran."

Arrietty didn't know what to do. The last time she had made friends with a 'bean things hadn't gone very well and the family had to move to a new home.

Arrietty looked up at Uran and asked, "Are you a 'bean or a 'bot?"

"What?" Uran asked. "Oh, I get it. I'm not a human being, I'm a robot." She answered.  
"Don't worry, I'll keep you a secret!" Uran added.

Arrietty looked up and smiled at her. "Good bye, I've got to go!"

The little borrower finished packing her climbing gear away and ran toward the hole in the baseboard. She darted behind the wall and hurried to meet her father and Spiller.

**Pod** had better luck. He and Spiller had located a jar of Tylenol capsules, and a roll of Tums and had borrowed two of each of them. Broken open, they would provide many doses for Homily. The small army of three borrowers slowly marched back toward their home downstairs. Arrietty decided to keep her encounter with Uran a secret. Maybe things would work out better this time.

* * *

**Uran **crawled back into bed and turned to face the wall. This time she quickly fell asleep, and slept soundly until the morning sun's first rays of light came through the window and landed on her eyelids. Just as the day's first light softly tickled her eyes, the warbling of a robin in a tree outside her window tickled her ears.

"Was it a dream?" Uran wondered.

She jumped out of bed and ran toward the bathroom, only to crash into the locked door.

"Astro -Ani!" She yelled while banging on the door. "Let me in"

She heard the sound of the lock being undone and the door creaked open a hair. Uran pushed it open the rest of the way. Astro was by the sink, splashing cold water on his face. He looked like he might have been crying.

"What's the mater, Ani?" Uran asked.

"I don't know." Astro sobbed. "I think I had that bad dream again."

Uran put her arms around Astro and hugged him. "It's OK. I'm here for you!"

"Thanks Ami" Astro said, kissing her on the forehead.

Uran had never found out what it was that sometimes came over her brother. Dr. O'Shay thought it might be a suppressed memory of Tobio's that sometimes came to the surface. He might be mourning for the loss of his mother or sister. The doctor wasn't really sure. At times like these, Astro needed a shoulder to cry on, and he'd take any that he could find. This time whatever came over him, didn't seem to last long. Astro left the bathroom and closed the door to his room behind him.

Uran quickly bent down and carefully examined the baseboard under the sink. YES! There it was, the small hole, now covered up. She examined it more carefully, and saw that there was a tiny doorway in the baseboard that probably opened from the inside. So it wasn't a dream!

* * *

**Pod **opened up one of the two Tylenol capsules and removed three of the pills inside of it. He crushed them into a fine powder and dissolved that into a glass of water. He then used a small hammer to break off a chunk off one of the Tums and added that to the glass, and stirred the mixture well with a spoon. He handed the glass to Homily. She slowly sat up in the bed and drank the medicine.

"I think you'd better sit up for a while, dear." Pod told her. It may take a while before the 'beans medicine starts to take effect.

"Thank you dear." Homily said. "I'm sure this will pass soon, it always does."

**Arrietty **and Spiller were sitting in the kitchen table drinking some tea that Arrietty had just brewed from one of the bags they had just gotten from the 'beans pantry. Pod walked in and sighed.

"I'm worried about your mother." He said "Her abdomen pains are back again, even worse this time."

"We got her the medicine" Spiller said.

"I know, but I don't think that will really cure her." Pod said. "I think we will need to go and find a healer. We'll wait a few days and see if the medicine helps, but if she gets any worse, You and I will have to go out and look for a healer."

"I'll be packed and ready to go when you ask" Spiller told him.


	4. Uran and Pinoko

**Uran and the Little People**

_Chapter 4: Uran and Pinoko_

**Uran **pulled her cell phone out of the zippered compartment in the lid of her small suitcase. She'd hidden the phone so Dr. O'Shay wouldn't know she'd brought it from home. Her guardian had told her and Astro that this was to be a retreat from the city and that they would be out of contact with their friends and coworkers from the city. Uran was sure that O'Shay had meant that for himself, not for her, but she figured it better to not let him know she had the phone with her.

She turned it on and waited for it to boot up. "Darn, this thing takes forever to power up!" she complained to herself. Uran was anxious to see if she had gotten any text messages from her friends.  
"Rats!" she muttered. "No bars!" She then remembered something O'Shay had told them, that out in the country the cell phone towers could be a distance off and that you might not get a signal. Climbing to a higher location could help, he said.

"Well I'm on the second floor!" Uran thought, so how can I get higher?

At first she thought of asking Astro to fly her up high enough to get a signal on the phone, but she didn't want him snitching on her for having the phone. She looked out the window overlooking the back yard, and spied the tall oak tree with the tree house in it. It was a good twenty feet higher up than her window, and the top of the tree was higher still. She pocketed the phone and ran down the stairs, and through the kitchen where Dr. O'Shay was now making breakfast.

O'Shay saw Uran zoom past him, and heard the sound of the back door to the house slam shut behind her. Right after that, he heard the squeaky footsteps of Astro plodding down the stairs from his bedroom. Astro entered the kitchen and took a deep breath to smell the eggs cooking.

"Astro, would you go outside and tell you sister that breakfast will be ready in about five minutes?" O'Shay asked the boy.

Astro nodded his head and slowly walked outside though the same door that Uran had just exited from.

* * *

**Uran** stood under the tree house and looked up. The trap door in the floor of the tree house was hanging down open, but there wasn't any ladder to climb up to it. Uran was glad that she had decided to wear her Jean pants instead of her pink dress. She was a tomboy at heart anyway, and not afraid of climbing trees. Her powerful fingers gripped the bark of the tree and she got a good grip with her sneakered feet. Without looking down, she slowly climbed up the oak, and soon reached the level of the tree house trap door. Uran pushed herself up and her fingers grabbed onto the floor, and she pulled herself up into the tree house. Once inside she looked around. There was a bench seat against one of the walls, that was really a storage bin. She lifted the seat and found a long rope ladder inside.

"So, that's how your supposed to get in here!" she laughed. There were two hooks by the opening to the trap door intended to hang the rope ladder by. Uran lifted the ladder from the storage bin and hooked it up, and then dropped the free end through the opening . The bottom of the ladder just reached the ground below.

Uran pulled her phone from her pocket and looked at the screen. She walked around inside the tree house and found that by standing in one of the corners she would have two bars of signal strength on her phone. Not great, but good enough.

**Astro **looked around the back yard, but he didn't see any sign of his sister. He put his hands up to his ears and turned his hearing up to 1000x strength. Now he could hear her up in the tree house. Astro flew over to the tree and hovered by one of the windows of the tree house. He looked inside and saw Uran texting on her cell phone. She spotted him and quickly stuck the phone back into her pocket.

"Can't I have ANY privacy?" she yelled at Astro.

"I was looking for you because Dr. O'Shay said to tell you that breakfast is ready!" Astro answered.

"OK!" Uran said. "I'll be there in five minutes."

"Fine!" Astro answered. "Tell Pinoko I said hello!" he added, flying back to the house.

"How did he know who I was texting?" Uran wondered.

"_So how is yur vacation so far?" _Pinoko asked

"Hmm, I guess I can tell her about the little people, since she's not here" Uran though.

"_I've made an amazing discovery. Five inch high little people are living in our house. I've meet one of them." _Uran texted.

She was about to climb down when Pinoko texted back.

"_Really? Or are U pulling Pinoko's leg?"_

Uran quickly sent back.

"_Yes, really. I'll try and get you a picture of her"_

Uran turned around and ran into Astro who had just flown back into the tree house.

"Some five minutes. You've been up there more like fifteen now. O'Shay said your breakfast is getting cold." Astro pouted.

"OK, fly me back!" Uran said. She grabbed hold of his left shoulder with her left hand and Astro put his left arm around her waist. They flew back to the house, where O'Shay was waiting.

"OK you two. Your eggs are on the table." He said as he started to wash the pan in the sink.

Astro and Uran gobbled down their morning meal. Astro then went back to his room and found the energy cylinder that they had brought along, and opening up his chest panel and inserting the fuel hose into his internal socket, he topped off his energy supply.

* * *

**Homily **woke up a few hours after her husband and found her way into the kitchen. She sat down at the table next to Pod who was drinking his morning coffee.

"How are you feeling this morning?" He asked.

"I think the medicine may have helped a bit. The pain is mostly gone, and I can walk." She said. "I hope I can eat something and hold it down."

"We have some bread left over from the last time we baked." Pod said. "I'll make you some toast with jam."

"That sounds good, dear." Homily said.

Pod prepared the toast over the stove, and spread some home made berry jam on it. He served it to his wife who at it slowly, while drinking some tea.

"Thank you dear, that seems to agree with me." She said.

Arreitty and Spiller came into the kitchen and poured themselves some tea from the pot.

Suddenly, Homily groaned and held her hand over the lower right side of her abdomen. She got up and ran to the sink and vomited into the drain. She held a wet dish towel to her forehead.  
"I think I need some more of the medicine." She said.

Pod prepared a glass full of the Tylenol and Tums mixture, which Homily drank down. She burped a little, and slowly sat down.

"If this continues, Spiller and I will go look for a healer for you." Pod said.

"No, I'll be OK. It's already passed." Homily said.

"I'm going out to look for some roots to make mom some herbal tea." Arreitty said.

"OK, but be careful. Don't let the 'beans see you," her father said.

* * *

**Uran **was surprised to find that her phone worked while she sat on the swinging bench seat on the porch. From here she had a good view of the garden and the road leading back to the highway. She and Pinoko texted back and forth for a while while Astro and Dr. O'Shay sat at the kitchen table playing cards. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted the movement in the grass where Arreitty was pulling up dandelion plants, and collecting the leaves and roots for her mother's tea. Uran watched as the tiny figure headed back toward the house where a grating covering a basement window was exposed. Uran ran down the steps and reached the window before Arreitty got there.

"Hello again!" She smiled.

Arreitty looked up into the face of the robot girl, who quickly snapped her picture with her cell phone.

"Hello." Arreitty said, hoping that the 'bot would leave her alone so she could get back to her family.

"You never told me your name." Uran said. "Mine's Uran, remember?"

"How rude of me." Arreitty said in self defense. "I'm Arreitty. I need to get back home with these dandelions to make my sick mother some herbal tea."

"Gee, I'm sorry to hear that." Uran said. "Whats wrong with her?"

"She has a real bad pain in her lower right side, and she's got a fever and throwing up." Arreitty said.  
"We borrowed some medicine from you, but it doesn't seem to be helping."

"Please let me know if I can help." Uran said as Arreitty went through the basement window and back through the passage ways behind the walls.

* * *

**Uran **walked away from the house and down the road. As she neared the edge of the driveway she noticed that the signal strength on her phone peaked at three bars, a bit more than halfway up the scale.

"Pinoko should know what's wrong with Arreitty's mother" she thought. "Or she can ask Kurō"

Uran dialed Pinoko's number and waited. The phone rang about 4 or 5 times before her friend answered.

"Hello Uran-kun" Pinoko said. "I can't talk very long, I'm in the middle of washing Sensei's dirty underwear!"

"I need your help." Uran said. "The little girl I told you about, well her mother is very sick. I need you to tell me what's wrong with her."

"I still don't believe you" Pinoko said. "I mean five inch high people!"

"OK, I'm emailing you her picture!" Uran said.

A few minutes later, Pinoko was back on the line.

"Wow, I guess you weren't kidding." She said. "That's an amazing scientific discovery! Oh, what are her mother's symptoms?"

"She has a fever, is throwing up, and has bad pains in her lower right hand side." Uran said.

"Acchonburike!" Pinoko said. "I know what that is! She has Appendicitis, that's very bad, without an operation she might die! Sensei cures many people of that!"

"Can you get Kurō to come here?" Uran asked.

"He charges a lot to make house calls!" Pinoko said. "But for you I'll bug him till he agrees to come over pro boner."

"Thanks!" Uran said. "Now I have to talk to Arrietty and get her to agree to this."

* * *

**Homily **lay in bed groaning in pain. She was sweating a little and was shaking from chills. Pod walked in to check on her and was worried.  
"This isn't getting any better, dear." Pod said. "Spiller and I are going to pack up and leave to find you a healer. Arrietty will look after you while we're away. I hope we can get back with a healer within a few days. Spiller thinks he knows where a nearby population of Borrower's lives and thinks they have a healer among them."

"OK dear." Homily said. "But I don't want to be a burden to you."

"You are far from that!" Pod said. "You mean everything to me, dear. Don't worry, Spiller and I will be OK, and we'll be back soon."

Arrietty bid her father and Spiller goodbye and wished them luck. She mixed up another batch of medicine for her mother and brought it to her. Homily drank the mixture, and settled back to sleep. She groaned a bit from time to time but was able to relax some.

"I don't think she can wait for a healer" Arrietty thought. She didn't like the idea of it, but maybe the 'bot Uran could find some help. Arrietty set off to go upstairs into the house to see if she could find the robot girl and ask her to help her mother.


	5. Kurō and Pinoko

**Uran and the Little People**

_Chapter 5 Kurō and Pinoko_

**Uran** and Astro sat on the floor in the living room playing cards. Dr. O'Shay sat in the corner, facing the two children, reading a week old newspaper. Astro had his back to the fireplace, which his sister was facing. Out of the corner of her eye, Uran saw a light appear from a hole in the baseboard on the wall next to the fireplace. Arrietty appeared at the entrance to the small doorway in the wall and waved at Uran. Uran looked up at her brother who was busy studying his hand of cards, and she then motioned to the Borrower toward the kitchen.

"I'm going to get myself a glass of water" She told Astro, who just nodded.

Uran walked into the Pantry and waited. Arrietty appeared on a shelf from behind a jar of peanut butter.

"Her I am, Uran!" she said. Uran followed her voice to the shelf.

"Hi! Arrietty" she said. "How's your mom?"

"Not good." The small person answered. "She's in a lot of pain and can't hold any food down. My father and Spiller, he's sorta my boy friend, they went to go get a healer. I'm worried they won't get back in time."

"I was afraid of that." Uran told her. "One of my best human friends lives with a doctor, and she is also his assistant nurse sometimes. She knows a lot about medicine, so I described your mother's symptoms to her. She told me that your mom is probably very sick and will need an operation to recover. Without that, she could die."

"What's an operation?" Arrietty asked.

"That's something human doctors can do." Uran explained. "They cut you open and fix what's wrong inside." She said. "Then they sew you back up and you heal. My friend said it sounds like your mom has something called Appendicitis. I looked that up on Google, and it means that part of her body is infected and has to be removed before it bursts open and spills poison into her body. If that happens she could get even sicker and die."

"I don't know if our healers know how to do that." Arrietty said.

"Well the doctor my friend lives with can do it, if you and your mom would trust him." Uran said. "My friend will ask him to come here. He's a bit of a strange man, but he is very kind and trustworthy."

"I'll try and convince my mother to let him see her." Arrietty said. "But tell him to hurry. She's very sick!"

**Uran** ran back through the living room and out the front door.

"Now where are you going?" Astro asked as his sister zipped by.

"Gotta do something outside." Uran said.

"Probably texting Pinoko again" Astro muttered to himself.

Uran took her phone out of her pocket and walked around the front yard till she found the sweet spot where she had three bars of signal indicated. She dialed Pinoko's number and paced back and forth waiting for her to answer.

"Hello Uran!" Pinoko said. "You're timing is always incredible. I'm on the toilet taking a dump!"

"Sorry!" Uran laughed. "Did you talk to Kurō yet? Arrietty's mom is getting worse!"

"Not yet." Pinoko said. "He's out with a patient now. Wait a minute I just heard his car pull up. I'll give him the business when he walks in. Call you back, or I'll leave a text!"

* * *

**Blackjack's **car crunched along the gravel driveway that lead to the house by the cliff. He picked up his black bag from the seat next to him and exited the car, walking toward the house. Before he could get his key in the lock, the door opened and there was Pinoko, wearing her apron over her favorite pink dress. She waved a large greasy spoon at him.

"About time you got back, Sensei!" she said.

"It took me longer than I thought with this patient." Kurō said. "Still, he not only paid me my fee, but gave me a bonus as well."

Pinoko smiled slightly. "Your lunch was ready an hour ago, I kept it warm for you!"

She pushed the doctor toward the table and placed a bowl in front of him. Pinoko then poured some hot green tea over the rice in the bowl and added some chopped tuna, seaweed, and pickled plums.

"Thank you Pinoko." Kurō said, picking up the pair of chopsticks that were sitting on a paper napkin next to the bowl. He raised the bowl to his mouth and started to eat his lunch. Pinoko waited till he was almost finished before launching her attack.

"My friend Uran called me. She's staying in a country house not far from here."

"So you want me to drive you over there to visit?" Blackjack asked.

"Actually yes. But you also need to bring your operation stuff with you." Pinoko said.

"Is someone over there sick?" Kurō asked.

"I think the mother of Uran's friend has Appendicitis." Pinoko sighed.

"Then she should go to hospital!" Blackjack said.

"She can't, you have to help!" Pinoko demanded.

"Well in that case, it will cost them 2,000,000 yen." Kurō said.

"This case is very special. You will do it pro boner!" Pinoko pouted.

"I think you mean, pro bono!" Blackjack laughed. "what's so special?"

Pinoko took out her cell phone and brought up the photo that Uran had emailed her.

"Look!"

There standing in what looked like a forest of bamboo was a teenage girl, holding some giant leaves. After squinting at the picture for a minute, Kurō realized that the leaves looked like common dandelions, only much larger. Then he spotted the giant ant on the ground and the actual scale of things fell into place.

"Is this a Photoshop trick?" Kurō asked.

"No. that girl is only four or five inches tall." Pinoko said. "She is one of a family of little people living behind the walls of the house. Her mother is the one sick. You'll need a microscope and small scalpels to operate on her!"

"This is incredible!" Blackjack said. "Let's pack our things and go. A patient is waiting!"

* * *

**Uran **read Pinoko's text message and cried out "Hurray! He's coming!"

She ran to the basement window and rapped on the grating, and called out "Arrietty!"

In a few minutes her Borrower friend appeared.

"Hi Arrietty!" Uran smiled. "My friend and her doctor are on their way!"

"That's very good!" Arrietty sighed. "My mom is still in a deep sleep. I'm very worried. I hope your friend can help her. She may be dieing right now!"

"Don't worry Arrietty." Uran reassured her. "Dr. Blackjack is the best there is."

* * *

**Pinoko **and Kurō packed the mobile operating room equipment into the trunk of the car. Blackjack carefully ground down a few of his scalpels blades to finer ends and he looked for the smallest tools that he could find. They would probably have to improvise along the way. At the last minute he remembered his high powered magnifiers and microscope.

The trip from the house on the cliff to the country house was over several winding country lanes, and a larger two lane highway. They were about three miles away when the car started to overheat and make some very bad mechanical noises. Finally the engine died, and they were stuck.

"I guess we'll have to walk the rest of the way and carry the equipment." Kurō said. "But It's still about two miles from here, and uphill all the way!"

Pinoko got out her cell phone and tried to call Uran.

**Uran** was outside by the basement window when her cell phone started to buzz. She walked to the sweet spot and answered the call.

"Hi Pinoko, where are you guys?"

"I don't know, about two miles away, but our car with all our stuff broke down. We have to walk, could take a few hours." Pinoko said.

"No way!" Uran yelled. "Do you have a GPS fix?"

"Oh yeah that!" Pinoko said. She opened Google maps on her phone and pulled up the latitude and longitude numbers and read them to Uran.

"OK, stay by the car. Ani is going to get you!" Uran replied.

* * *

**Astro **was laying on the floor of the living room where Uran had left him. He had given up on the card game with his sister, and was now playing solitaire by himself. Uran burst into the room.

"Astro-Ani I need your help!" Uran cried.

"Now what?" Astro sighed.

"Pinoko-Chan and Kurō were coming over here, but their car broke down." Uran said. "Could you sorta .."

"OK, I'll go get them for you!" Astro said. "Want to come along?"

"YES!" Uran yelled. She grabbed her brother's left shoulder and he put his arm around her waist and they flew off to the coordinates that Pinoko had given Uran. Astro landed next to the car.

"Well I could push it up the road, or we could get there a little faster, if you guys aren't afraid of heights." Astro said.

"Let's do it the fast way!" Pinoko said. She pushed Kurō back into the car, and got in next to him, while Uran got into the back seat.

"What's going on?" Blackjack asked as Astro lifted the automobile up into the air and flew it back to the country house.

"Oh no!" Kurō said, holding his hand over his mouth. "Now I'm going to get sick!"

The flight took about thirty seconds. Astro set the car down in the driveway, behind Dr. O'Shay's compact car. Uran and Pinoko got out.

"That was fun! Can we do that AGAIN?" Pinoko asked.

"NO!" blackjack answered as he got out of the car and staggered over to the bushes to throw up in the weeds!

**Blackjack, **Pinoko and Uran walked into the house. Dr. O'Shay had met the doctor before, some years back when his Godson Tobio was in the hospital with his fatal injury. He hadn't ever met Pinoko, and Uran introduced them.

"I didn't expect you to have friends over, Uran," O'Shay said, "But I now remember that Dr. Blackjack does live not too far from here."

"Why don't you make our guest's some tea?" Uran asked O'Shay.

"Sure, Uran-kum," O'Shay said as he walked into the kitchen, followed by Pinoko.

"Now let's see about our patient." Kurō asked Uran. He seemed to have recovered from his bout of vertigo.

"Sure, follow me." Uran replied.

She led Dr. Blackjack to the grated basement window and knocked on it. Arrietty heard Uran and came to the window.

"Arrietty, here is Dr. Blackjack. He's come to help heal your mom."

Arrietty and Kurō took their first looks at each other. Dr. Blackjack was amazed at the sight of the Borrower. He wondered now if the Irish stories about Leprechauns might actually have some basis in fact. Arrietty was at first taken back by Kurō's appearance. His two tone hair and skin, plus the scar on his face scared her at first, but she saw the kindness in his eyes and her fears quickly melted.

"How am I going to get to your mother?" He asked.

"I didn't think of that." Uran said. "I guess we'll have to bring her to you, doctor."

"I can't carry her all the way here." Arrietty cried. "What can I do?"

"We'll make you a native American sling stretcher." Blackjack said. He dug into his pocket and removed a handkerchief. He then found two twigs of the right size on the ground. He doubled the handkerchief over and knotted the corners to the two sticks

"Here," he said, handing his handiwork to Arrietty. "You'll lay your mother down on the cloth, and then get some string or rope to tie her down so she won't slip out. Then you can drag her by carrying the stretcher over your shoulders. Then when you get here, I'll lower some rope and you'll tie it to the four corners of the stretcher and I'll pull it up to the window."

"Yes, that will work!" Arrietty said. "You're very smart, Doctor!"

"Where will you operate?" Uran asked.

"Well, see if you can lure Dr. O'Shay out of the kitchen and keep him out. Pinoko and I will set up shop in there."

"OK!" Uran replied.


	6. The Operation

**Uran and the Little People**

_Chapter 6: Operation_

**Pod **and Spiller took Spiller's tea kettle boat upstream to a small settlement of Borrowers. There were two families living in a house several hours away from Pod's home in the country house where Dr. O'Shay and his adopted family were vacationing. The two families made Pod and Spiller welcome, and they spent the night before moving on.

Mr. Dial told Pod that there was a larger settlement of Borrower's living under the General Store, in the 'bean town, and he explained to him how to hitch a ride there on one of the pickup trucks that often went down the road right by his house. Pod Clock thanked his hosts and he and Spiller set off to the 'bean's town to look for the Borrower settlement and hopefully find a healer.

**Very** early the next morning, Pod and Spiller found themselves in the general store settlement There were ten Borrower families living in apartments carved out under the building. They lived well, since the General store had everything a Borrower could ever need. The leader of the settlement, suggested that Pod bring his family to live with them, there was still plenty of room under the store to set up dwelling spaces for at least five more families.

"What I really need is to find a healer," Pod said.

"Oh dear." Mayor Broom sighed. "We used to have one, but Doctor Holiday left us several months ago. He was an old man and he never trained a successor. We've been lucky so far that none of us has gotten very sick, but one of these days. I'm sorry about your wife, but I don't know of any other Borrower settlements nearby that could help."

Pod felt defeated. With no idea where to look, he decided he'd better get back home and check on Homily. They hitched a ride on a 'bean truck back in the general direction of home, but when they got off, it appeared they were lost. Spiller was good at following trails, and he set them off in what he thought was the way back.

* * *

**Arrietty **dragged the sling stretcher into her mother's bedroom and tried to wake Homily. Her mother opened her eyes a crack and muttered something in a whisper and fell back into a light sleep. She slowly lifted her mother's shoulders and pulled her toward the edge of the bed. Homily was just awake enough to help by moving her legs to the floor so Arrietty could lower her onto the sling. She tied her mother to the stretcher with two heavy belts from some old bathrobes and then lifted the sling over her shoulders. She was able to drag her mother on the stretcher to the basement window where Uran and Doctor Blackjack were waiting. Uran had found some heavy twine in the basement and let down two lengths of it from the window to reach the floor. Arrietty followed Blackjack's instructions and tired one of the lengths to both ends of both poles of the stretcher. She tired the other rope to the first and held on to it. As the doctor raised up the stretcher to the window, she used the other rope to keep it clear of the wall. Soon Homily was up by the window and Arrietty climbed up on the second rope to join her.

Pinoko brought a shoe box from in the house and carefully placed Homily inside it. She carried the ill Borrower into the house.

"Meet us in the kitchen" She told Arrietty.

Astro and Uran kept Dr. O'Shay busy in the living room. She brought out a set of Chinese checkers and the three of them were now playing. Astro still didn't know what was going on in the kitchen.

Blackjack set up his plastic tent in the kitchen. He was able to maintain a sterile environment inside the tent. Pinoko brought in the doctor's equipment bag from the car. She went around the back of the house to avoid walking though the living room where Dr. O'Shay was sitting. Arrietty sat on a shelf in the pantry watching. An ironing board was set up as the operating table, and two tensor lamps were providing light. Pinoko made use of the kitchen stove and a soup pot as an autoclave to sterilize the Doctor's tools.

"I'm going to have to be very careful with the anesthesia, because I have no idea of the dosage for someone so small" Blackjack said. He diluted several drops of ether with water and soaked a cotton ball in the mixture. He used a hammer and a nail to pound holes into a metal thimble and put some of the cotton into that. Pinoko held the thimble over Homily's mouth and nose so she would breath the vapors. She soon fell under a deep sleep that appeared to be at the right level.

"Good!" Blackjack said. "We can begin the operation."

He used a large, square lens as a magnifier and also wore special telescopic glasses to get a better view of the tiny patient. "Scalpel!" the doctor asked, and Pinoko placed one of the modified scalpel's in Blackjack's gloved hand. Carefully, he made the incision over the lower abdomen and used a small hemostat to pull open the layers of muscle.

"We're just in time!" Kurō said. "Another hour and her appendix would have burst!"

Dr. Blackjack looked through his instruments. "I don't think I have a needle small enough to suture the end of the appendix."

Arrietty ran back to her mother's room and looked though her things. She had some tiny sewing needles that Pod had made for her years ago with items found in a blacksmith's shop. She returned with three of them. Arrietty called for Pinoko from the pantry.

"Acchonburike!" Pinoko exclaimed. "That's just what the doctor ordered!" She carefully opened the flap in the tent and took the three needles from the Borrower. Pinoko quickly dropped them into the soup pot filled with boiling water and left them there for a few minutes. She then poured out the water, carefully so the needles wouldn't fall out of the pot. Pinoko grabbed at them with her gloved hand. They were hot but she didn't mind.

"Here Sensei!" she said handing him the tiny needles.

"These are perfect!" Blackjack said. "Only they are so small I'll have to hold them with a hemostat."

Pinoko carefully divided the fibers on the silk thread that the doctor used for suturing to make it thinner. With the special thread and needle, Blackjack isolated the infected organ from the healthy intestine, and then removed it with the scalpel. Everything looked perfect, the color was right and there was no bleeding.

"Now we can close!" the doctor said. He carefully closed the incision with small, tight stitches. Kurō removed his mask and looked up at Arrietty, and motioned to her. She jumped down from the pantry shelf and walked over to the operating tent. Pinoko reached down for her to climb into her hands and raised the girl up to the table so she could be with her mother.

"The operation was a success." Blackjack said. "I'm going to give her a small injection of antibiotics to help her fight off any residual infection. The smallest hypodermic needle I have is for subcutaneous injections just under the first few layers of the skin. On someone your size, they would be just about right for an intramuscular shot. Good thing I carry these to treat allergies." The doctor jabbed the needle into Homily's gluteus maximus and injected the antibiotic.

"She'll sleep for a while longer. When the ether wears off she should feel a lot better."

Pinoko stuck her head into the living room and gave Uran the thumbs up. Uran excused herself and ran into the kitchen. Blackjack had taken down the tent and was packing it up. Arrietty was sitting next to Homily, holding her hand. Uran saw the happy smile on her face and tears started to flow from her eyes and down her checks. Blackjack turned around and Uran leaped into his arms and hugged him. Pinoko started to get mad, and then figured that THIS time it was OK for Sensei to get a hug from another woman (especially a robot).

Blackjack called into town for a tow truck, which only took about twenty minutes to show up. "The garage will give you a call on your cellphone when we know how long it will take to fix your car" the tow truck driver told him.

"Well, I guess we might have to stay the night." Kurō said.

"I could always drive you two back home." Dr. O'Shay said, "But you're welcome to stay here. The couch in the living room isn't too bad, and there is a pullout bed downstairs in the basement room."

"My bed is big enough for two, Pinoko can sleep with me." Uran said.

"OK." Pinoko replied.

"Then I'll just use the couch in the living room." Blackjack said.

Pinoko lifted Homily's bed on the operating room table (the ironing board) and put it into the shoebox. Arrietty climbed into the box and Pinoko carried it down to the basement near the window with the grating. She also brought the sling stretcher with her.

"I could help you put your mom into the stretcher and then you could bring her back to her bedroom. It would be nice for her to wake up in her own bed." Pinoko said. "But, it might be safer for her to remain here where Sensei could see her to check up on her condition, just in case."

"I think you're right. We'll be safe down here." Arrietty said.

* * *

**Pod and Spiller** made camp for the evening. They still hadn't found the stream that led back to the country house. Spiller still thought they were not too far off course, but Pod was getting worried about his wife and daughter. They found a hollow cinder block that made a good place to keep out of the night air, and hid from any wild animals that might pass by in the night. Spiller made a small campfire and they heated up some soup they had taken with them from the Mayor's family in town.

* * *

**Homily** woke up confused. She last remembered being in her bed, now she was lying on a foam block in the basement passageway.

"Mom, you're awake! How do you feel?" Arrietty asked.

"A little groggy and hungry!" Homily said. "I had the strangest dream, but I can't remember much of it now."

She felt an itch and reached under her blouse to scratch it. She pulled her hand away quickly and tore open the garment to see the neat row of stitches along her lower abdomen.

"What's this?" she asked.

"That is going to take some explaining." Arrietty said.

"Pod found a healer, didn't he?" she guessed.

"No, actually I did." Arrietty said. "but that's a long story, and I don't want to get you upset now."

"OK, you'll tell me later." Her mother said. "Now help me back to my kitchen so I can get something to eat."

Arrietty put Homily's arm over her shoulder and helped her walk back to their home. She would wait till the morning to explain to her mother about Dr. Blackjack, Pinoko, and Uran.


	7. Lost and Found

**Uran and the Little People**

_Chapter 7: Lost and Found_

**Homily** ate some toast with jam, and washed it down with some dandelion tea. She felt no discomfort and breathed a sigh of relief.

"It itches and draws where I've been stitched up here" she said pointing to her lower abdomen "but the fever and pains are gone and I no longer feel like I can't hold any food down. Where is this healer, I'd like to thank him."

"Come with me, then mother." Arrietty said. She led Homily back to the basement passageway, and stopped under the grated window.

"Stay here. I'll be right back."

Arrietty entered the tunnel behind the walls that led to the opening in the living room next to the fireplace. It was now dark in the house and Kurō was in a light sleep on the couch. Arrietty walked over to him and tugged gently on the belt of his bathrobe dangling over the edge to the floor. Blackjack opened one eye and saw the Borrower on the floor. He rubbed his eyes.

"Is something wrong?" He asked.

"My mother's awake, and she'd like to see you, if you don't mind." Arrietty said.

"I'm at your disposal" Kurō said. He bent down and offered his open hand to Arrietty, who jumped into it so Blackjack could lift her up to his shoulder.

"Tell me where to go." He said, picking up his black bag.

They descended the stairs to the basement and walked past the recreation room, through the area where the plumbing for the furnace was, and into a passageway leading to a storage area. Homily was sitting on a match box near the grated window. Kurō bent down and Arrietty slide down his arm.

"Mother, this is Dr. Blackjack." Arrietty said. "He's apparently a very famous healer among the 'beans and he was the one who treated you."

"You made contact with the 'beans?" Homily cried out. "We'll be discovered again and have to leave our home!"

"You have nothing to fear from me." Blackjack told her. "I'm the kind of doctor that is more infamous than famous. I often end up treating human patients of the worst kind that demand their secrecy, and they pay me well for keeping it. The secret of your family's existence is safe with me. Besides some mutual friends would be very angry at me if I made any trouble for you."

Homily looked up at the scared face of the doctor and saw the kindness in his eyes.

"I actually think I can trust you, doctor. Thank you for treating me."

"You were very lucky, had I gotten here an hour later you might not still be with us." Blackjack said. "Can I examine the area and see how it looks?"

Homily slowly opened her blouse and opened it to expose the incision. Kurō gently pulled back at the bandage and looked. He opened his black back and removed a Q-tip and dipped it into a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and gently wiped the area. After applying some topical antibiotic, he redressed the area.

"It looks like it will heal nicely. Keep the area covered, and dry for a few days. If the stitches don't fall out on their own, they can be cut and pulled out in a few weeks time. I'm going to go back to sleep now, I'll probably be gone sometime tomorrow. If you need me, Arrietty knows how to get in contact with me via a friend of my "daughter," Kurō said.

Blackjack picked up his bag and turned to leave. Arrietty and Homily waved goodbye and started back to their home.

"You do seem to have a way with the 'beans," Homily said. "I just hope we will be safe. I can only imagine what your father will say."

"Oh dear!" Arrietty sighed. "Father and Spiller are still gone. I hope there are alright."

* * *

**It was** now the fourth day that Pod and Spiller had been walking, trying to find their way back home. They were now foraging for acorns and seeds, having used up the provisions they had in their packs. Spiller had caught some crickets and worms, which they had roasted and smoke cooked.

"It's my fault, I led us in the wrong direction." Spiller sighed.

"Nonsense. You were doing fine up until that cat showed up out of nowhere and we had to run for it." Pod told him. "We had to hid for several hours, and by that time the sun had gotten low and the shadows had shifted."

"I still think we are close to the river, once we find that, the way back will be clear." Spiller said. As he walked Spiller softly hummed and whistled the same tune that he often did when he was alone, or feeling lost. It was sort of a prayer that his father had taught him a long time ago. The melody bugged Arrietty, and she always told him so when he hummed or whistled it in her presence. Pod didn't mind it, he was used to the sometimes strange ways of his younger companion.

* * *

**Arrietty** was worried. "Father and Spiller have been gone nearly a week now." She sobbed. "They were looking for a healer for you, but now you are fine and they are lost!"

"Don't worry dear." Homily tried to reassure her daughter. "Your father has been on longer trips before. He's a good surviver."

* * *

**Blackjack and Pinoko** thanked Dr. O'Shay for his hospitality and for the ride into town to pick up their car. He and Pinoko had stayed an additional few days as the garage had to order a part for the car, and there wasn't any pressing need for him to return to his clinic. Pinoko and Uran were happy to spend the time together. Uran showed Pinoko the tree house, and they had fun skipping stones across the stream, and fishing for trout. Kurō examined Homily once again before leaving, and explained to Arrietty how to remove her mother's stitches after the incision had completely healed.

Uran watched the car pull away. "I'll right back after I leave your friends at the garage." O'Shay told Uran. She and Astro sat in the living room playing cards. Out of the corner of her eye, Uran saw her Borrower friend peeking her head though the hole in the baseboard by the fireplace. Uran pointed toward the kitchen.

"Ani, I'm going to get a drink of water."

Astro just nodded and shuffled the deck of cards, as his sister walked into the kitchen.

"Hello Arrietty, how's your mom?" She asked.

"Mom's fine." Arrietty said. "It's my dad and Spiller I'm worried about. They're lost I fear, they've been gone too long now."

"Then we have to go find them." Uran said.

"But I have no idea which way they went." Arrietty cried. "I'm now mad at myself for telling Spiller to go away from me every time he whistled that stupid song of his!"

**Astro** walked into the kitchen and saw Uran standing by the pantry. His sensitive ears had heard her talking, but he hadn't been listening close enough to make out what she had been saying.

"Who are you talking to Uran-Ami?" Astro asked. "You've been in here for a long time. I've gone back to playing Solitaire."

Arrietty backed up and hid behind a jar of pickles. "Who's that?" she asked

"Just my stupid brother!" Uran said. "Well!" Astro humphed and walked back to the living room.

"Now how are we going to find them?" Uran wondered. "Too bad they don't have cell phones with GPS with them." she sighed.

"I don't know what that is" Arrietty sighed. "All I know is that if we got close to them and were down wind I'd be happy to hear Spiller's stupid whistling. He does that none stop when he's alone sometimes."

"Well I like music, what does he whistle?" Uran asked.

"Oh it's a dumb tune, that goes something like this... Aine Kellow Lah, Aine ma misehtoe, La Ellow Anine, La Kellow Oh, Rumm Rumm Rumm." Arrietty said.

"Sounds a bit catchy to me." Uran laughed.

"Spiller's whistling can carry for a long way, he's got some set of lungs." She laughed.

Uran looked through the open door of the kitchen into the living room. Her brother was lying on the floor with the deck of cards spread out into piles, playing Vegas style Solitaire. Sometimes Astro got under her nerves. You never knew when he had those ears of his cranked up all the way and was listening in on you!

"DUH!" Uran face palmed. "I'm an idiot!" She laughed.

"What do you mean?" Arrietty asked.

"I was just mad at my brother, and now I'm so happy at him!" she cried. Uran held out her hand.

"Climb on board!" She lifted the Borrower to her shoulder and walked into the living room.

"Ani!" she said sweetly.

Astro turned and looked up. His eyes popped wide open at the sight of the Arrietty sitting on Uran's shoulder, holding on to her bangs with one hand.

"A little people?" he asked pointing. "They're real?"

"NO DUH!" Uran said. "We need your help. You and your wonderful ears!"

"My father and boy friend are out there somewhere, lost. I don't know how to find them." Arrietty sobbed.

"Yeah, but I got an idea." Uran laughed. "Spiller, that's her boy friend, has this annoying habit of whistling a certain tune when he's alone or lost. So, maybe we can use your ears like radar to find him."

"Hey, that's right!" Arrietty laughed. "That could work. But that would be a lot of walking, even for you guys. They could be anywhere."

Astro walked up close and stared at the little Borrower sitting on his sister's shoulder. He laughed at her. "Who said anything about walking?"

Uran walked upstairs to her room and came down with a silk scarf. She tied it around her neck, leaving the ends loose.

"Tie yourself up with the free end's of my scarf, and hold on tight so you don't fall off" Uran said. "Sit by my ear on my shoulder so I can hear you."

"What are we going to do?" Arrietty asked.

"We are going to find your father." Uran said. "From above!"

Astro walked outside, and Uran followed. Arrietty hummed Spiller's tune for Astro, and he nodded.

"OK, I know what to listen for. Now hang on!"

Uran grabbed her brother's left shoulder with her right hand and Astro put his left arm around her waist. The next instant they were airborne and Astro had his ears cranked up to 1000 x gain.

* * *

**Spiller **walked slowly, carefully examining the trail ahead of him. He looked at the moss growing on the tree bark, he carefully smelled the wind trying to catch scent of the river, he watched the direction that the birds flew in overhead. All the while, he whistled the tune his father hat taught him. Sometimes he hummed or sung it. It was a prayer, asking for guidance from the spirits.

* * *

**Astro **flew over the stream, zig-zagging back and forth, making wider circles from the edge of the property the country estate sat on. He reached the nearby town, and flew over that, then back in the direction toward the house in widening circles. All the while he carefully listened to the sounds on the ground. He heard frogs croak, flies buzzing, birds chirping, crickets buzzing. No singing, no humming or whistling.

Uran looked down, trying to see through the tree tops. Astro flew low over the ground cover, all the while listening. Arrietty held on to Uran's scarf for dear life. She had always wondered how the world looked like to the birds, she had always envied them. Now she was seeing the world as they did, how frightening and wonderful at the same time!

* * *

**Pod **yelled for Spiller to stop for a moment. He'd misstepped and twisted his ankle. Pod sat on a rock and removed his left shoe and was now rubbing the foot. He worked the pain out of it and replaced the shoe. All the while Spiller alternated between whistling and singing. He stopped for a moment and helped Pod to his feet.

"Are you OK to continue?" Spiller asked. "I think I can smell the river nearby."

Pod took a few steps. "I can walk, but take is slowly."

They continued their march, Spiller whistling his tune at a faster tempo, he was feeling a little surer of his navigation now. They entered a clearing in the middle of wooded area they had been marching through.

* * *

**Astro turned** back toward the direction of the town. He could see the stream ahead of him and beyond that a clearing. He scanned his head from side to side. Suddenly he heard it. The tune that Arrietty had hummed for him. Astro flew toward the sound, it was now coming from the clearing ahead of them, just before the stream. The tempo of the melody had changed. It had been Andante, it was now Allegretto.

Astro zoomed in his vision. "I see them!" he said as he slowed down and rotated his body for a vertical landing. Astro's boots touched ground in a small cloud of exhaust.

Uran released her brother's shoulder and reached up for Arrietty who had already untied herself from the scarf. Uran lowered her to the ground.

**Pod was** sitting on a clump of moss rubbing his ankle. He was in pain, and had asked Spiller to stop for a moment so he could massage the ankle again. They heard a strange sound, like some kind of machine flying overhead. He wasn't sure if they were in danger from it, Spiller had walked off to investigate. Pod turned and rubbed his eyes.

"Father!" Arrietty ran toward her dad. "We found you!"

"How did you get here, and how is your mother?" her father asked.

Spiller came back and saw Arrietty.

"How?" he asked.

"That is a long story." Arrietty said looking up.

Pod and Spiller turned and looked up into the smiling faces of Uran and Astro.

"You've made friends with the 'beans again?" Pod asked.

"Uran and Astro are robots, father." Arrietty said. "We can trust them."

"Time to go home" Astro said.

"I think there is room in my pockets for you guys." Uran said. "Good thing I wore my baggy Jeans today!"

She lifted the three Borrowers up and they climbed into her left pocket. Uran grabbed Astro's shoulder again and her brother slowly lifted off to fly back to the country house.

* * *

**Homily **said she wasn't worried, but she really was. She blamed herself for Pod's disappearance. Now Arrietty had wandered off into the house, for what she didn't know. She sat in the kitchen drinking the last of the dandelion tea. The clock on the wall made the only sounds in the house, no footsteps, none of Spiller's whistling or Pod's whittling. Oh to hear those sounds again.

Suddenly, she heard the sound of a door opening, and that of familiar footsteps. Pod, Arrietty and Spiller poured into the kitchen.

"You're up and about!" Pod cried upon seeing his wife.

"Yes, you can thank your daughter for that." Homily said. "She made friends with the robot bean, and that wonderful child brought me a healer."

Homily pulled up her skirt to show off the bandage.

"That's where he reached inside me to remove the sickness!" She explained.

Pod hugged his wife, and then turned to Arrietty and Spiller.

"Excuse us, we want to be alone for a while." Pod said, walking Homily to their bedroom.


	8. Summer's End

**Uran and the Little People**

_Chapter 8: Summer's End_

**Astro and Uran** sat on the swinging bench seat on the front porch looking out over the garden.

"Remember, you can't tell ANYBODY about the little people, Ani-Chan!" Uran said, "Not even Dr. O'Shay. The Borrowers don't want any humans to know about them, but they trust us robots."

"But Pinoko and Dr. Blackjack know about them." Astro protested.

"Well that couldn't be helped. Besides, Sensei Kurō took a hippocratic oath, so he has to keep it a secret. Pinoko thinks like I do, she will keep the secret as well."

"OK." Astro said. "I guess it's the right thing to do."

* * *

**Homily **didn't like the idea. "Do we have to leave again?" she asked. "I've come to like this house even better than our old one. Surely you're not worried about Astro and Uran, are you. She and her human friends saved my life! I trust them!"

Pod stopped his packing and looked at his wife. "That's not the reason. For the past fourteen years we've been living mostly by ourselves thinking we were the last of our kind. Now I've discovered a community of at least a dozen families living together, in a safe place with plenty of provisions. It's what we've been looking for on and off for years."

Homily sighed. "I suppose you're right. We need to think of Arrietty as well. Spiller is the only boy she's ever met, except for that 'bean Shawn. We were trying to get her to accept Spiller as more than a friend, but I don't think they are really made for each other. Spiller needs to find someone also."

"That's been on my mind as well." Pod said. "I think we can stay here until the 'beans leave. The summer is almost over and the early fall makes good traveling weather."

* * *

**Dr. O'Shay **double checked that he hadn't forgotten anything. They were going back to Metro City in a few days and he had gotten a jump on his packing. It had been a peaceful and quiet summer break, in hindsight it had been a very good idea of Yuko's to send them here. He was very happy that Astro and Uran had gotten along so well. Usually they would find something to quarrel over. The brief visit by Pinoko and Dr. Blackjack had been a nice break of pace too. Pinoko was a bigger handful than Uran, he thought, and she didn't have over 30,000 horse power!

* * *

**Arrietty** walked out on the front porch and called up to Uran.

"Hello!"

"Hi" Uran replied, bending down to offer the Borrower a hand up. Arrietty climbed into Uran's hand, and the girl 'bot lifted her up and set her down next to her on the swinging bench.

"We're leaving in a few days." Uran said. "Summer is almost over, and I start school in the fall."

"My family is leaving too." Arrietty said. "My father found a small community of Borrowers living in the human town about two day's walk from here. Mayer Broom invited us to come live there."

"That's nice." Uran said. "It's better to live with others of your own kind."

Pod and Homily came out through the same little doorway under the hose tap that Arrietty had just used to get to the front porch. "Hello up there!" Pod yelled.

Astro looked down and saw the little man standing there next to his wife.

"Want a lift?" he asked.

"Sure." the two of them answered, and Astro lifted them up to the bench.

"I wanted to thank you again for helping Spiller and I find our way back home." Pod said.

"Glad to do it." Astro replied. "I hope you find a nice home in town with the rest of your kind."

"Thank you!" Homily said. "I wish I had something to give you as thanks for saving my life."

"That wasn't my doing." Uran said. "You already thanked Dr. Blackjack and Pinoko."

"Yes, but you introduced me to them!" Homily said.

Arrietty removed a paper clip from her hair. "A few years ago I gave one of these to a 'bean friend to remember me by. I'd like to give this one to you Uran, for the same reason."

Uran accepted the gift. "I don't need this to remember you. My computer brain never forgets anything" she said. "but I'll keep it because I like it, and you!"

"We have to go pack now" Pod said. "We'll be leaving after you are gone. Have a good life back in the city."

Uran cupped her hands and the Borrower family climbed inside. She carried them to their doorway into the house and waved goodbye.

* * *

**Astro **finished packing his suitcases and carried them out to the hallway. He almost tripped over Uran's two bags just as Dr. O'Shay dragged his out. Now there was a pile of suitcases almost blocking the stairway. Uran slid down the banister of the staircase and ran toward the fireplace. Astro now knew what she was doing, saying goodbye to Arrietty. Dr. O'Shay was walking back and forth between the staircase and his room, like he was in a fog.

"What's wrong sir?" Astro asked.

"I can't seem to find my car keys." he sighed. "Maybe I left them in the car. I'll go look."

He somehow manged to squeeze by the pile of luggage and waddled down the staircase and out the door. Astro sighed and picked up all of the luggage. Once again he disappeared in the middle of the huge pile and carried them all downstairs and out the door of the house. Just as he thought, Dr. O'Shay had left his car keys in the ignition, he also left the doors unlocked. He popped the trunk open, and Astro loaded the luggage inside.

* * *

**Arrietty **was busy finishing her packing. She and Homily were sad that once again, they had to leave some things behind because they couldn't carry them all. She heard Uran's scratching at the door in the baseboard by the fireplace and came running.

"Hello Uran." She said.

"Actually it's goodbye now." Uran answered. "We're leaving for the city very soon. Just finished packing and loading our car."

"We're also packing up. I wish we could take everything, but we can't carry it all" She sighed.

Astro walked in and saw the Borrower talking to his sister. He had also heard what they had said.

"Where is all the stuff you are leaving behind?" Astro asked.

"We left it in a pile in the basement under the window." Arrietty said. "We were hoping to find a way to take some of the stuff with us, but we can't"

"Where are you moving to?" Astro asked.

"The Borrower community lives in the human town under the general store." Arrietty said.

"Meet me in the basement" Astro replied.

He found a cardboard box that they were leaving behind for the trash and carried it downstairs to the basement. Astro walked back to where the grated window was and found the little Borrower standing next to a small pile of goods. There were some toys, pictures, clothing, and household items such as pots and pans. Astro scooped them all up and put them into the box.

"I'm going to leave this box somewhere outside the general store where you can find it." he said. "See, it has my name on it." Written on the outside of the box, Astro had written his name.

"Oh thank you!" Arriety said. "Mother will be so surprised when we get there!"

Astro ran up the stairs and outside the house carrying the box. He saw Dr. O'Shay by the car studying a map.

"I'll be right back, Sensei!" he yelled leaping skyward with the box. Astro flew into town and landed outside of the general store. His sensitive hearing located where some of the Borrowers were and he saw a carefully hidden entry way into the underground of the store. Astro placed the box behind a large barrow that was used to collect rain water. He wrote on the box, "property of the Clocks".

"There, they should find it." He thought.

By the time Astro got back to the country house, Dr. O'Shay had locked the front door and was in the car about the start the engine. Astro got in the back seat with Uran and they backed out down the driveway to the road.

"That was a nice vacation, don't you think?" Dr. O'Shay said.

"Oh Yes!" Uran answered. "Can we come back here next summer?"

"I don't know." Dr. O'Shay said. "This house might not be available next year. We'll see."

* * *

**Arrietty **and Homily watched as the car drove away.

"They were so nice!" Homily said. "I hope we can see them again."

Pod gave his wife a glance from across the room.

"I mean the 'bots of course." She added.

"Yes, I suppose. We do owe them greatly." he admitted. "Well it's time to go. Spiller has already gone ahead and is waiting for us to catch up."

The Clock family took a final look around and headed out the back. The caught up with Spiller at the river to board his tea kettle boat to head toward the 'bean town, and the Borrower community there.

The End


End file.
